


Eli's No Good Very Bad Day

by ZsforSs



Series: ISD Chimaera Mission Debriefings [2]
Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Eli Vanto is Badass, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Mission Fic, The focus of this story is, Trans Eli Vanto, but it's not the focus of this story, maybe a little tiny hint of one-sided Nightswan/Eli
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 21:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZsforSs/pseuds/ZsforSs
Summary: Eli woke up chained to a wall, and pissed.   His head felt fuzzy but Eli tried to focus- his hands were in binders and linked through an exposed pipe behind his back. Well kriff.





	Eli's No Good Very Bad Day

**Author's Note:**

> It's my personal opinion that there aren't enough mission fics in this fandom, so I'mma write some.
> 
> I'm going to put this in a series with the other mission fics, but all are stand alone.

“Your thoughts?” Thrawn asked as they left the assembly hall.

Where to start? Eli smiled, “I think everyone in that room _except_ the person who requested us is doing something illegal. The question is which one of them is skimming from the council's funds?”

They were on Ashwara- A Mid Rim system, unremarkable- they were a decent sized shipping hub but not much else. The head of their governing council had called them in when he discovered someone was skimming from the planet's treasury- and that a suspicious number of doonium shipments passing through the planet's main port were turning up light.

The Head Councilor had obviously had dealings with Imperial forces before, his request for help had mentioned the doonium problem first and noted the matter of someone stealing from the local government as a secondary concern.

“Indeed,” Thrawn said. “I trust we'll find our look into the council's records enlightening.”

“I'm looking forward to it.” Eli said. He was too, he'd started helping his mom with the records for the family business when he was ten. Supply dockets and profit and loss spreadsheets were easy-even comforting-for him. “We should start with the treasury records.” Treasurer Worrel had been particularly twitchy during their meeting.

“Sirs?”a voice behind them called. It was an aide- Eli recognized her from the meeting they'd just left but didn't remember her name or which councilor she worked for. He and Thrawn stopped, and let the woman catch up.

“Sirs if you'll-” she began as she jogged up. “Wait, sorry, I'm the Head Councilor's aide Sylvi Ecarro. The High Councilor told me to show you to a suitable office for you to do your audit in... If you'll follow me?”

“Of course,” Thrawn said, and they fell into step behind the young woman.

She led them to a small windowless office with not much besides a computer terminal in it.

Thrawn and Eli shared a _look._ Ecarro smiled nervously. “Sorry about the space.... The Councilor wants to keep this audit low key for now- this computer should have access to all the systems you need.”

Eli stepped around Thrawn and sat, “It has access to the imports rosters and the treasury accounts?” he said as he booted the computer up.

“Yes.” she said. “Will you be transferring the data back to your ship or...?”

“Commander Vanto and I are more than capable of handling the audit ourselves,” Thrawn said.

“Um... OK. I'll check in on you later I guess...” Ecarro said before awkwardly squeezing past Thrawn and out the door.

The embezzling was ridiculously easy to uncover- though the missing money first was diverted to an odd 'transit development' fund. It would take more digging to find out who exactly was siphoning the money off.

Thrawn had just asked him to start looking into the council members' personal files when Ecarro came back, looking flustered. 

Eli glanced at the computer's chrono, they'd only been at work about half an hour.

“Sorry to interrupt!” Ecarro said. “But uh, Head Councilor Twoen wants to speak with you.”

Eli started to stand but Thrawn put a hand on his shoulder. “Continue exploring the council's links to the shipping industry Commander- particularly scrap metal shipping. I will speak to the Head Councilor and return soon.”

“Uh...” Ecarro started to speak, but then pressed her lips together. “Yeah, alright... um, come on then...”

Thrawn and Eli shared another look before Thrawn followed the aide out of the room. She was being very twitchy. Eli added her name to the suspect list and pressed on with his investigations.

He'd only been at it about five more minutes when the door behind him opened again.

“Back so soon?” Eli asked. 

Thrawn didn't answer right away, but that wasn't unexpected. 

Eli twisted in his seat to see Thrawn's expression- just in time for the stun bolt to hit him square in the face.  


* * *

Eli woke up chained to a wall, and _pissed_. His head felt fuzzy but Eli tried to focus- his hands were in binders and linked through an exposed pipe behind his back. Well _kriff._

He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes. He was on the bridge of an older model JH type freighter and he was freezing. There were five people on the bridge, only two Eli recognized- Treasurer Worrel and Ecarro, the Head Councilor's own aide. The three others were dressed in uniformly dark clothes, and held themselves like they were used to fighting. 

One of these men was arguing with Worrel. None of them had yet realized Eli was awake.

Eli shivered, and looked down at himself. Well his clothes were gone, that explained why he was so cold. He was in his regulation boxers ...and his gloves oddly enough. Eli twisted his wrists, the binders were on top of his gloves. 

Whoever had stunned him had put the binders on without bothering to take his gloves off first... Eli bet it was Ecarro or Worrel, a professional would have known better. This might work to his advantage- if he could work the gloves off he might be able to get free. Eli started working his wrists in circles and tugging, trying to manipulate the gloves- and hopefully binders too off his wrists.

His head ached, and the right side of his face was sticky and wet, had he hit his head when he was stunned? He had no idea how long he'd been out. Well, until he got his hands free all he could do was hope he didn't have brain damage.

“Look just go tell the others to make sure everything is stored away.” Worrel snapped.

One of the dark suited men scoffed but turned to leave. As he left he noticed Eli.

“Look who's awake.” the dark man said as he left. “Told you you didn't hit him hard enough, Moir.” Everyone on the bridge turned to look at him. Eli slowed his wrist movements to a crawl, but didn't stop. 

He also didn't bother talking to them. It wouldn't do any good.

Worrel scoffed. “It hardly matters, as long as he's not digging though our files and the other Imps are busy looking for him. We'll ask Nightswan what to do with him when he answers.” Eli noted there was an open ended comm signal going out, waiting to be accepted by someone on the other end of the transmission.

Nightswan? This must be one of his little projects. Eli couldn't quite contain his scoff.

“What are you laughing about?” one of the dark-suited men said- Moir, Eli thought. 

Well he asked.

“Y'all kidnapped an Imperial officer without a plan?” Eli said. “I bet I can tell you what this _'Nightswan'_ will say.” He had one hand almost halfway off.  
  
The conspirators all looked shocked, then angry. He might just have gotten himself in trouble- but then the comm panel chimed, their message had gone through.

Eli couldn't help himself, when the holo came online he leaned forward slightly- excited to get a look at Nightswan. If he was able to provide a physical description of Nightswan it would help tremendously in their search for him.

The figure in the holo was wearing a hood and a full face mask. The mask looked familiar, but Eli couldn't place it. (Thrawn would know.) They were humanoid at least, general physique suggested male...

He could just see their eyes move through the slits in the mask- looking at his co-conspirators, to Eli and then back- but the holo was shitty and red-tinted so he couldn't pick out an eye color beyond 'light.'

“You're all idiots,” a modulated voice said. It was deep though, and not all of that was modulation. Probably male. All in all nothing they hadn't guessed before.

Eli sighed and went back to working his hand loose. He was nearly there...

His kidnappers hadn't liked Nightswan's proclamation and were kicking up a fuss. Good.

Eli worked a hand free, and carefully maneuvered the now empty binder cuff through the pipe as quietly as he could. He shifted so his legs were under him and considered his options.

Four people, all currently distracted. The closest was one of the dark-suited men... his blaster was unattended on his hip.

The man was only four feet away. Eli knew he could definitely make it to the man before anyone could react.

...Unless Nightswan warned them. 

He waited for his moment. Until Nightswan shook his head at something Worrel was complaining about- _now_ while he was distracted.

Eli sprang. He clocked the closest man in the side of the head, using the binders to add power to the blow. The man went down, Eli grabbed his blaster as he fell.

He twisted the blaster's setting to stun, dodged a blaster bolt from the other professional, and managed to hit the man with a glancing stun blast to the shoulder. The man didn't drop, but his arm went limp and he lost his grip on his blaster.

Eli stunned him again, dropping him too- and then hopped sideways as Worrel attempted to tackle him. 

Worrel missed completely, and Eli shot him in the back before wheeling at shooting Ecarro as she ran for the door.

Now the only conscious person on the bridge, Eli secured his prisoners, hauling first the men in black and then Worrel and Ecarro into the storage closet off the bridge and using the binders the men in black had on them to cuff the conspirators together- looping the binders through exposed water pipes like he'd been bound himself.

He was surprised when he came out of the closet and Nightswan's comm was still open. Eli paused as the closet closed behind him, staring at the grainy holo that was staring back.

“Nightswan,” Eli said. To his surprise the masked man nodded.

“Vanto,” the man replied. “I'm glad you didn't kill any of them.”

Eli shrugged, he came up to the console. The thought hadn't crossed his mind. “They can go to prison instead.”

He locked the bridge and looked over the control panel. He pulled up the ship manifest and security feeds, casually initiating the ship's comm tracking software too. There were a half dozen other people on board... The last thing he wanted was them to storm the bridge- or to attack any Imperial forces that came to his rescue...

He had an idea.

Eli activated the hull breach protocol. Immediately sirens started blaring all over the ship.

Every spacer worth their pay knew you didn't fuck around with hull breaches, unless you wanted to be seeing the breach form the outside.

Hull Breach Protocol was fairly simple- in the event of a breach an Atmosphere Retention Forcefield would slam down at the nearest cut off points. If you were on the breach side of the cut off you were screwed, but if you weren't you had to find the nearest enclosed room and emergency seal the door. And you had to be fast. Atmosphere Retention Fields were incredibly difficult to maintain- especially on any ship smaller than a Star Destroyer- so you only had a few seconds before the ship sealed all the doors shut and dropped the AR Field.

Imperial regulations required AR Fields to stay up at least ten seconds. This crappy little ship sealed all the doors after only five. Eli checked the display- remarkably the remaining crew had managed to get into secure locations- most in the galley but two unlucky bastards were crammed into a supply closet.

Eli canceled the protocols and made sure his plan had worked. Yep. Like a charm.

“What did you do?” Nightswan asked.

Eli looked up at the holo and shrugged. He went ahead and answered Nightswan's question- he needed to keep him on the line as long as possible.

“These JH freighters are held together with bonding tape and hope did you know?” Eli said. “For instance, the hull breach protocol is glitched. If you cancel out of it after the doors seal, but without going through the checklist to restore functionality then the door stay sealed, until you totally shut down and reset the main computer system.”

Nightswan snorted, “That's ridiculous.”

“There's a reason production of these ships stopped more an a decade ago,” Eli said.

“Something you picked up while working for your parents?” Nightswan asked. Eli went rigid, but before he could say anything Nightswan continued. “That wasn't a threat or anything like that Vanto, your parents and their little shipping business are safe from me.”

“So you're just bragging then?” Eli snapped. “Just trying to intimidate me by showing off how much you know about me?”

“Knowledge is power Vanto, I'm learning more every day.” Nightswan's tone was hard to decipher under the audio masker, but he sounded almost playful.

Then Nightswan's head dipped a little like... like he was looking Eli over...

Nope. Noooooope, Eli refused to continue that thought. He ignored the look, and pretended he wasn't blushing and didn't cross his arms over his chest even though he wanted to.

Instead Eli huffed and changed the subject. He decided a pointed question was in order. “This seems a bit more violent than your usual job. Didn't know abduction was your scene.”

“It isn't.” Nightswan said. “Kidnapping you was entirely their idea. I told them to cut their losses and run if Thrawn showed up.”

“He'll be thrilled to hear that.”

“I've no doubt, but I had better go. I don't want to hang around chatting until your tracking program finds something useful do I?”

“Aw, please?” Eli protested.

Nightswan laughed, and the signal cut out. Leaving Eli alone on the bridge- well, except for the people locked in the closet.

Eli sighed, and opened up the comm frequency in a wide range, looking for the Chimaera- or any other Imperial ships. 

The ship was tucked into the shadow of the planet's rings, so Eli dropped the ship down out of the rings a mile or so, and tried again.

The Chimaera came rocketing around the planet _immediately_. 

“JH freighter,” the comm from the Chimaera said immediately. Eli recognized the voice, it was Thrawn himself. “Shut down your engines and prepare to be boarded immediately.”

Eli grinned and activated the visuals. Bringing up an image of the Chimaera's bridge up, and letting them see him. 

Eli has _never_ seen Thrawn look so pissed. _Ever._ The look lasts only a split second though, then Thrawn relaxed minutely, his expression going lax and relieved. “...Commander Vanto.” 

Eli grinned. He'd seen that. Thrawn's lips had drawn back for a moment, like he was going to called him Eli instead of Vanto.

“Hello sir,” Eli replied. “I apologize for being out of uniform. I'm honestly not sure where the rest of it is.” He suspected his coat and shirt had been cut off him, given the binders. He went ahead and cut the engines as Thrawn had requested.

“That is quite alright Commander Vanto. What is your situation?”

Eli explained the crew trapped in various places, the glitched hull breach protocol, and the partially traced comm with Nightswan.

Thrawn listened intently, “Very good Commander Vanto, how are _you_?” Eli could see Thrawn eyeing his head wound.

Eli shrugged. “I'm fine sir, cold, but fine..”

“Very well. A boarding party will be there soon.”

“Yes sir.”

The communication with the Chimaera cut, leaving Eli alone again. He sighed, at least he'd be back home soon.

* * *

Thrawn was the first one to reach the bridge. Eli hadn't realized he was joining the boarding party. He came to Eli's side immediately.

“Hello sir-” Eli was interrupted by Thrawn wrapping him in a spare blanket.

Eli felt himself blush but he was grateful. He had been cold. 

“Thanks,” Eli said. “I have the data from Nightswan's holo up on the computer for you to review.”

“Thank you Eli,” Thrawn said. “I will have someone transfer the data to the Chimaera. Right now I will be escorting you to the medical bay to get your head injury examined.”

“Oh.” Yeah he should probably get that looked at, especially because his head still ached.

“Come.”

* * *

While the doctor was applying bacta to his head injury Thrawn let Eli use his datapad to review the security footage from the planet.

Eli watched himself being manhandled onto the freighter. As he watched the him in the footage stirred, and started to resist his captors. One of the men punched him in the side of the head, and out he went again.

“I don't remember this at all,” Eli admitted.

“Head trauma will do that to you.” the doctor said, the scanner in her hands beeped. “ It looks like you don't have any lasting damage though. Keep that bacta pad on a few more hours and don't take any more whacks to the head alright? I'm taking you off duty for 24 hours just to be safe.”

“Yes ma'am,” Eli said. 

Thrawn walked him to their rooms, even though Eli protested. He could walk himself there, really. 

Thrawn stopped outside Eli's door. He was standing a fraction too close, a hand came up and almost rested on his back- but they were in public so it quickly dropped again. “I must return to the bridge Eli, go rest.”

Eli smiled. “Yes sir. Don't have too much fun without me.”

Thrawn's lips quirked and he left, striding back towards the bridge. Alone, finally, Eli slumped a little and went to go take a nap. He collapsed on his bed and pulled his blanket over his head. He was out almost immediately.

Eli woke up several hours later his head felt much better.

It was obvious what had woken him, Thrawn was sitting on his bed near Eli's hip.

“How are you feeling?” Thrawn asked. 

Eli yawned. “Alright I guess. Did you find anything from the holo?” Eli asked.

“You managed to track the signal to a relay out near Untuo before Nightswan disconnected it. There's an old gas mine out there that may have been serving as Nightswan's base of operation. I've sent a scouting party.”  
  
“He'll be gone by now.” Eli said, sitting up and picking at the bacta bandage on his head

“Almost certainly.” Thrawn acknowledged. “I watched the bridge security footage of the holo.”

“And?” Eli wasn't sure what Thrawn could have gleaned from the security footage he couldn't get from the holo itself- Eli's exact responses to Nightswan he guessed.

Thrawn moved Eli's hand away and peeled the bandage off Eli's head himself, taking a moment to make sure the cut had healed before answering. “He threatened your family.”

Eli hadn't been expecting that. “Yeah that was _fun_ \- I think he meant it though... That he wasn't going to harm them, that is. He does... he seems to have a certain code of ethics yeah? Going after my family wouldn't fit.”

“I would generally agree, still it is worrying he was able to find that information on your family.”

Eli shrugged. “My name is common knowledge, he could probably have worked out my homeworld too without getting his hands on any important files-or at least an idea I was from Wild Space. My family's shipping company is well respected, it wouldn't be hard to work out those Vanto's were related to me.”

“Perhaps.” Thrawn conceded.

“There's an embarrassing picture of ten year old me with my parents on the company's official Holonet site.”

“Really?” Thrawn said, reaching for his datapad.

Eli laughed and pulled Thrawn's arm away. “Or maybe he did get hold of my files. I bet there's plenty of people that've been in my files that shouldn't because of you.” Eli said. 

“My apologies.” Thrawn said, his tone jesting.

Eli smiled, “You're off duty right?”

Thrawn raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”

Eli pulled Thrawn down and kissed him. “Then you've got plenty of time to make it up to me.”

“An excellent plan.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I think I just wanted to write Eli beating some people up.
> 
> <3


End file.
